A minimum wage gig in the 1990s turns into pretty much the Best Job Ever.

The parking lot is full—unusual for the small strip mall where I sell video games. It takes me a while to park my car, and when I make it into the store, chaos greets me: a line at the counter, the cardboard remnants of a FedEx drop shipment scattered everywhere, my harried-looking manager matching names from a printout to real customers standing in line, then doling out colorful boxes to the mob as quickly as she can. An unattended toddler knocks over an endcap display and starts crying.

I hurry to the back of the store to grab my name tag. When I return, a customer at the front of the line exclaims, "Bullshit, lady! I got the preorder slip right here. I want the damn jet ski game, not just the Mario one." The other customers in line begin to stir angrily. My manager looks over at me as though I might be able to sort out the mess.

It is September 1996, I am 18 years old, and I am the "keyholder" at Babbage's store no. 9 in Houston. This is the North American launch day for the Nintendo 64, which makes it the third major 1990s console launch I am lucky (or "lucky") enough to work. As the yelling escalates, I wonder if I'm going to make it through my shift without getting punched in the face.

But let's start at the beginning.

Sega Saturn

In August 1994, I began working at Babbage's as a minimum wage sales associate earning $4.25 per hour—which, having just turned 16, I was thrilled to have. By the time the whole operation came to a crashing close three and a half years later, I was an older but wiser man who had worked through not one, but three separate console launches that would together bring "modern" consoles to the world. For younger or newer gamers, those who have seen console launches only in the last few years, those mid-1990s launches may sound like they took place in a different country. And in many ways, they did. The retail landscape around video games felt little like it does today, and the launches themselves were not quite the truly mainstream events they have become in the years since—but for store employees, they were just as crazy.

It was a heady time to be a gamer. No "Nintendo 64" existed at that point, though gaming magazines were abuzz with news that the console developer was working on something called "Project Reality." If EGM and GamePro were to be believed, this new platform would deliver some kind of virtual reality gaming experience that would be like a mash-up of The Lawnmower Man and TRON and uploaded directly into our brains, where it would redefine the future of video gaming while melting our faces right off.

But first, before the face-melting could begin, came the Sony Playstation. And before that came the Sega Saturn. And before all three came the oldest gaming activity of them all: arguing that the system you had purchased had been the best possible choice.

Babbage's had two other part-time sales associates when I arrived, and both of them seemed 12 feet tall in my young eyes. Todd, the most senior, had won a 3DO in a magazine contest; the other, Jeff, owned an Atari Jaguar. These two systems defined state of the art in the middle of 1994. The 3DO was a god-like machine of mythical capabilities with a price to match. Retailing at $699 at launch, it played hardware-accelerated, smooth-as-butter video from CD-ROMs, and its games looked amazing. Todd waxed rhapsodic when he described FIFA Soccer or Road Rash or, most incredibly to me, Crystal Dynamics' port of Star Control II, which featured full-motion video and speech.

The Panasonic version of the 3DO, left, and the Atari Jaguar, right.

Wikimedia Commons

But my coworker Jeff at every opportunity talked up the superiority of his Atari Jaguar. In addition to being more affordable to mere mortals, the Jaguar touted itself as the first "64-bit" gaming console. This was mostly a marketing-based claim, as the technical details behind it were a bit hazy, but it didn't stop either Atari or Jeff from shouting about it from the rooftops.

Unfortunately, Jeff's Jaguar suffered from a sad dearth of titles. The system itself had a neat visualization mode where it would display trippy graphics with a music CD inserted, and the copy of Cybermorph it came with was weirdly fun, but it never had a huge number of games.

Road Rash on the 3DO. These graphics were awesome in 1994.

Electronic Arts

However, the Jaguar did have one thing that no other system did: Aliens vs. Predator. In 1994, years before the stunning awfulness of Alien Resurrection, this was the freshest Alien franchise item you could get your hands on (well, it was either this or a Laserdisc player with a copy of the Criterion Collection Aliens special edition, but normal people didn't own stuff like that). Aliens vs. Predator was mind-blowing: you could play as an alien or as a Marine or as a Predator! I devoured the AvP box's pictures and copy, and I listened rapturously to Jeff's telling and retelling of his gameplay experiences. Many times over my first year at Babbage's, I almost sunk three or four entire paychecks into that console and a copy of AvP—but I could never quite commit.

Aliens Vs. Predator on Jaguar. I wanted to play this SO BAD.

Atari Corporation

Increasingly, however, it became clear that both systems belonged to the past. The 3DO vs. Jaguar in-store holy wars continued, but 1994 closed with us all eagerly anticipating the launch of the Sega Saturn, which went on sale in Japan around Thanksgiving 1994 and was slated to come to the US for at the end of the third quarter of 1995. My buddy Jason, an anime connoisseur and ardent lover of all things Japanese, predicted that the Saturn would lead to a renaissance in video gaming; Sega's laughable Genesis add-on, the 32X, was sitting on our store's shelves like a thing already dead, unselling and unsellable. Never mind Sega's misstep with the 32X, though; the Saturn, Jason predicted, would make up for all past sins and destroy the 3DO and Jaguar both.

The Sega Saturn certainly looked like it would be impressive. From a technological point of view, it had a CD-ROM drive and more than a half-dozen processors scattered around inside of it. More importantly, though, was its pedigree. In the beginning of 1995, console gaming was something of a two-party system: you had Nintendo with the SNES on one hand, and Sega with the Genesis on the other. Sure, there were other options—the 3DO and the Jaguar were two, of course, along with more fringe consoles like the TurboGrafx 16, or the even more rare Neo Geo and its $200 cartridges—but most folks were either (R) Nintendo or (D) Sega.

Nintendo still cultivated a family image, where Sega went edgier, both in games and in advertising, and so the Saturn seemed to appeal to a hardcore gaming audience. Its launch price of $399 was a little nutty compared to how much a Genesis or SNES cost (though not as stratospherically absurd as the 3DO's $699), but when we began taking preorders in anticipation of the September 1995 US release, sign-ups were brisk.

Sony was busy playing up its own entry into the home console market, too. The implosion of a partnership with Nintendo to produce a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES led directly to the development of Sony's Playstation console, which launched in Japan less than a month after the Sega Saturn and which was targeted to follow the Saturn to market in North America, and at only $299, undercutting Sega's console by a hundred dollars.

In many ways, the Playstation was less technically impressive than the Saturn. Rather than a tour de force of two CPUs and an array of co-processors, the Playstation had a far less complex traditional architecture, with a single CPU and a single GPU. Judging by the quality and type of titles, the Saturn was especially good at moving around sprites and art; the Playstation looked better at pushing polygons. Fighting game purists put their money on the Saturn, since the most popular 2D sprite-based titles would look and play best there.

Sneaky Sega

The Sega Saturn in North American launch colors. This bad boy cost $399 when it launched.

Today, with the remnants of Babbage's, Software Etc., and Electronics Boutique all gobbled up by the slavering used-game-powered beast that is GameStop, it's hard to remember just how different things used to be. Babbage's, for example, had an actual return policy. When I started, you could return anything—console game, PC game, productivity application—within 30 days of purchase for a full refund or exchange, so long as you had saved your receipt.

People rarely abused the privilege. We tracked returns and exchanges, and if someone was going crazy, we might stop letting them do returns, but we had few issues. If anything, the policy boosted sales because it let folks take chances on titles. After all, if it sucked, you could always take it back!

We sometimes wore ties then, we sales associates, and we knew what we were talking about. Uncommissioned, carrying no quota, and encouraged to be honest, we were trusted friendly faces. If you wanted cheap video games, you went to Walmart, but if you wanted actual expert advice on what to buy and a gold-plated return policy, you went to Babbage's.

It was a great job—the best a young geek could ask for. In order to ensure that we stayed current on our knowledge, we were encouraged to check out games, keeping them for a day or two in order build familiarity. We received regular visits from game company reps, who would appear in the store and dole out demo copies of hot titles so we'd be able to sell their wares more effectively.

Enlarge/ The author, guarding the back room with box on head. In my shirt's defense, it was the 1990s. Everyone dressed like this.

Lee Hutchinson

The atmosphere was collegiate, joyous, ridiculous. Our manager, Anna, was in her late 20s and as goofy as the rest of us. Pranks abounded. A running informal contest challenged employees to package the largest and most complex items possible using the shrink-wrap machine in the back. One evening, I shrink-wrapped my manager's office chair (this is a lot harder than it sounds). We would have shrink-wrapped each other's cars if we could have gotten them into the back room.

But things got serious around launch day, especially with the Saturn, because Sega pulled a fast one in May. It struck a blow against Sony by unexpectedly releasing the Saturn months ahead of schedule in the US. We got a drop-shipment of Saturns and games the morning of the announcement, and we busily started selling the things. Although, after the pre-order folks had picked their units up, we found ourselves with a back room full of Saturns and not many interested buyers.

Some of the launch title choices were odd for a North American audience. Virtua Fighter sold best, followed closely by Daytona USA, but the other two titles were more difficult. Clockwork Knight was a platformer with pretty graphics but child-like box art that no one purchased; Panzer Dragoon appeared to be about riding on a dragon and blowing things up, but it resonated even less with customers than did Clockwork Knight.

The Saturn's price was its biggest stumbling point, though. A September launch date might have encouraged folks to splurge on the expensive system for the holidays; it also would have given Sega some more time to cook up some additional launch titles. At the start of summer, though, without a holiday in sight, no one was going to drop $400 on a console and $50 each on top of that for some weird-looking games. The Saturn rotted on our shelves.

Sony played its cards well, holding fast to its own late 1995 release date and lower $299 price. We took far more Playstation preorders than we did for the Saturn, and the year crawled toward September with a growing realization that the Saturn was dead in the water—that was what it looked like to us retail pukes on the ground, anyway, with sales circling the drain even within a few months of launch.

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

171 Reader Comments

Microsoft is a player now, too, which would have drawn a snort and a laugh from me back in 1995.

Hell, it drew a snort from me when they first announced the Xbox. Just like so many things Microsoft tries their hands at the first iteration was ok, with a dash of 'meh', and the second iteration nailed things down. Much of what we expect in the online arena comes from the ideas that Microsoft brought to the table.

Quote:

I went in expecting to earn some pocket-money and came out with friends, memories, and a soul-mate (Laura and I married in 2003). As high school jobs go, I hit the jackpot.

Dawww. Though seriously, that first job, no matter how sucky it might have really been, is often the job that is looked back on most fondly. My first job was in a supermarket. Shouldn't have been memorable, but it strangely was. I'd never go back in a million years, but for a HS job it was (nearly) perfect.

Great read. I hope I'm not turing into one of those "good ol' days" people, but man the 1990's were without a doubt the best times to be a gamer. I was way too young to work at a babbages or funcoland (remember that place?), but I have some great memories playing Mario 64, Pokemon, and discussing all the latest gaming rumors with the employees there.

Great read. I hope I'm not turing into one of those "good ol' days" people, but man the 1990's were without a doubt the best times to be a gamer. I was way too young to work at a babbages or funcoland (remember that place?), but I have some great memories playing Mario 64, Pokemon, and discussing all the latest gaming rumors with the employees there.

If you think the 1990's were a better time to be a gamer than now, you need to wash the rosetint off your glasses or maybe just do some more gaming.You have easier and cheaper access to gaming platforms and games of all kind. You have online gaming like never before. You have more variety in games than ever before. Wii, PS Move, Kinect, plastic guitars and dance mats in the living room would have a 90's gamer drooling.Not to mention the fact that we get a steady stream of AAA games rivaling blockbuster movies in production value (and cost) and a more lively indie scene than ever before. And when we get nostalgic we have easy access to most of the good 90's games.

I enjoy finding this type of story at Ars. I can't forgive the unnecessary dig at the awesome Alien Resurrection at the beginning, and someone unfamiliar with videogame history will walk away with bad information because of the comments about the N64 vs the original PlayStation legacies, but thanks for the read!

Wow this sounds exactly like my working at the mall stories from the mid-'90s. Except I was the friend of the employee that worked in the food court and came over after stores closed to play demos for the games we couldn't afford to buy. Man, it was amazing to work in a mall, then. Right near the food court, there was a thriving arcade, a Babbages, and a comics and board games store. We all converged to share our after-work wares, when the mall was owned by the employees.

Hi5, Lee! I started working at Software Etc in August of 96, just in time for the N64 launch!

And what a launch that was. Our store got exactly two units to fill our 55 pre-orders. The day, and week, from hell.

We had no idea at the time that the store would be closing shortly, of course. I'm surprised that yours closed Christmas Eve without notice. Our last day open was the day before Thanksgiving, and we went in the two days after to pack up the store and ship it to either another local store, or on a truck to the distro center.

Let me just say that, while you may have loved the job, it changed a lot a few years later. I remember how awesome it was when I started in 96, but by the time I left in 07 it was... not great. You escaped, and obviously fell into something better.

Lovely read indeed! Back then I was going through elementary and high school. The N64 was something I played at friends houses because my parents thought consoles were a waste of money. I didn't pickup my first console (PS2) until I was in Grade 10 in 2001; but over the next few years that turned into about 30 titles. Then I grabbed a 360 ahead of all my friends in '06 a year of a launch I was barely aware of. 6 years later that's turned into 100+ titles and a dozen or so friends (and more importantly a soul mate) who are as into gaming as Lee was in high school.

Such a happy place games, and the same camaraderie that you experience in gaming retail I got during a stint in the Apple reseller universe. The launch of OS X 10.5 Leopard was a busy time for me as well and I also have fond memories of that place.

We had no idea at the time that the store would be closing shortly, of course. I'm surprised that yours closed Christmas Eve without notice.

The actual close date was a couple of weeks later, a bit after the new year, if I'm remembering right—we got time to shut down and transition stuff to the Galleria (babb) and Buffalo Speedway (setc) stores. I think that was in my original copy, but got trimmed in editing.

Microsoft is a player now, too, which would have drawn a snort and a laugh from me back in 1995.

Hell, it drew a snort from me when they first announced the Xbox. Just like so many things Microsoft tries their hands at the first iteration was ok, with a dash of 'meh', and the second iteration nailed things down. Much of what we expect in the online arena comes from the ideas that Microsoft brought to the table.

Oh man I remember the day I told my friends that Microsoft had acquired Rare. They all laughed and said that it was nothing more than another prank because they did that every year. A few days later when they realized it was serious...some of them probably cried.

They were so sure that the X-box was going to get rocked by everyone. And then along came Halo...

Microsoft is a player now, too, which would have drawn a snort and a laugh from me back in 1995.

Hell, it drew a snort from me when they first announced the Xbox. Just like so many things Microsoft tries their hands at the first iteration was ok, with a dash of 'meh', and the second iteration nailed things down. Much of what we expect in the online arena comes from the ideas that Microsoft brought to the table.

Actually, Microsoft typically hits their stride on the 3rd revision. First revision gets a laugh out of everyone, 2nd one falls short, then the third one, you better watch your back. This isn't necessarily the third release, but the third version. Like Windows only became really good at 3.0, many other 3.0s have done the same. Of course, past results are not indicative of the future - this does not mean the next Xbox is an instant hit. Muddle it up because typically the first revision of hardware is Microsoft's claim to fame.

But this is a great story for a slow dreary January Sunday, and something I expect to see from Ars. News blogs are a dime a dozen, but in-depth articles and damn entertaining stories aren't. Keep it up.

The first playstation outsold N64 102 millions to 32.9 millions (wikipedia), so, if there were a dominance it was especially limited to the US, or to your shop.Plus, the picture labelled as "the original playstation" depicts one with a dual shock controller, which was introduced only in late 1997, although the console itself looked the same it most certainly was not the first model produced (and there were minor internal differences if I recall correctly).

The first playstation outsold N64 102 millions to 32.9 millions (wikipedia), so, if there were a dominance it was especially limited to the US, or to your shop.Plus, the picture labelled as "the original playstation" depicts one with a dual shock controller, which was introduced only in late 1997, although the console itself looked the same it most certainly was not the first model produced (and there were minor internal differences if I recall correctly).

Yes, I can only account for what I saw. North American uptake on the N64 was considerably faster than the original PSX, though. The two pages you reference show that it took Sony ~9 months to sell about 1 million NA PSXs, while Nintendo moved 1.5m NA consoles in only 11 weeks. This Forbes article from 1997 paints a similar picture.

At the time working retail in North America, the N64 launch blew the doors off of the Playstation launch. It was crazy-busy. Things leveled out after a couple of years, but the two systems' launch days were very different experiences.

That's because the PlayStation was sold for a lot longer time than the N64, too. N64 was very, very popular at release.

Feanaaro wrote:

The first playstation outsold N64 102 millions to 32.9 millions (wikipedia), so, if there were a dominance it was especially limited to the US, or to your shop.Plus, the picture labelled as "the original playstation" depicts one with a dual shock controller, which was introduced only in late 1997, although the console itself looked the same it most certainly was not the first model produced (and there were minor internal differences if I recall correctly).

Great article. I was in college in my first aparment during this time. My 3 roommates and I had many drunken splitscreen battles of Mario Kart, Waverace and Goldeneye. Probably the most fun I've ever had with video games. Really miss those days.

I worked in a game store around that time too, Pacific Microlab in Australia - we also sold incredibly overpriced laptops and PCs.

The thing I remember most clearly is the manager taking deposits on console preorders right before Christmas and then selling those reserved consoles to last-minute shoppers who came in waving cash. Then he left the juniors to do the explaining when people came in to pick up their preorders.

Hell, it drew a snort from me when they first announced the Xbox. Just like so many things Microsoft tries their hands at the first iteration was ok, with a dash of 'meh', and the second iteration nailed things down. Much of what we expect in the online arena comes from the ideas that Microsoft brought to the table.

I would actually argue that who really defined online gaming was Blizzard. Battle.net was really the start of everything good about online gaming, with the original Diablo.

Kind of funny to think that it apparently takes longer to develop a Diablo title than a whole generation of hardware consoles.

Hear that, Ars? Your Reviews Editor thinks his minimum wage high school job was his best job ever. Better step up the bennies in the Orbiting HQ.

Well, meeting your future spouse sorta does bump up your impressions of that job. I mean making a lot of money and having jobs perks is great and all, but it's nothing in comparison to meeting the right one. You know?

Your story sounds awfully familiar. I worked part-time in the first "grey import" video game shop in Amsterdam, The Netherlands during my university days. At that time it was the best job ever. We had the first copy of Streetfighter 2 for the SNES; the queue went around the block! In the end I spent more time in the shop than studying. I'm still a huge fan of old-school gaming and my 3 year old is growing up liking Mario and Sonic a lot more than Master Chief.

Are you still friends or otherwise in contact with the people you met during your time there? I had a similar environment where the job was okay but the people were great as a teenager. Most of us are spread out across the nation now, but we're all lifelong friends.